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模糊語(yǔ)言中英譯文
21-A. The Language of Uncertainty
Uncertainty spreads through our lives so thoroughly that it dominates our language. Our everyday speech is made up in large part of word like probably, many, soon, great, little. What do these words mean? "Atomic war," declared a recent editorial in the London Times, "is likely to destroy forever the nation that wages it. How exactly are we to understand the word likely? Lacking any standard for estimating the probability, we are left with the judgment of the editorial writer.
Such verbal imprecision is not necessarily to be criticized. Indeed, it has a value just because it allows us to express judgments when a precise quantitative statement is out of the question.
The language of uncertainty has three main categories: (1)words such as probably, possibly, surely, which denote a single subjective probability and are potentially quantifiable; (2)words like many, of-ten, goon, which are also quantifiable but denote not so much a condition of uncertainty as a quantity imprecisely known; (3)words like fat, rich, drunk, which can not be reduced to any accepted number because they are given different values by different people.
We have been trying to pin down by experiments what people mean by these expressions in specific contexts, and how the meanings change with age. For instance, a subject is told "There are many trees in the park” and is asked to say what number the word many mean to him. Or a child is invited to take "some" sweets from a bowl and we then count how many he has taken. We compare the number he takes when he is alone with the number when one or more other children are present and are to take some sweets after him, or with the number he takes when told to give "some” sweets to another child.
First, we find that the number depends, of course, on the items involved. To most people some friends means about five, while .some trees means about twenty. However, unrelated areas sometimes show parallel values. For instance, the language of probability seems to mean about the same thing in predictions about the weather and about politics: the expression is certain to (rain, or be elected) signifies to the average person about a 70 per cent chance; is likely to, about a 60 per cent chance; probably will, about 55 per cent.
Secondly, the size of the population of items influences the value assigned to an expression. Thus, if we. tell a subject to take "a few" or "a lot of" glass bald from a box, he will take more if the box contains a large number of glass balls than if it has a small number. Hut not prolix>rtionately more: if we increase the number of glass balls eight times, the subject takes only half as large a percentage of the total.
Thirdly, there is a marked change with age. Among children between six and fourteen years old, the older the child, the fewer glass balls he will take. But the difference between a lot and a few widens with age. This age effect is so consistent that it might be used as a test of intelligence. In place of a long test we could merely ask the subject to give numerical values to expressions such as nearly always and very rarely in a given context, and then measure his intelligence by the ratio of the number for nearly always to the one for very rarely. We have found that this ration increases systematically from about 2 to 1 for a child of seven to about 20 to 1 for a person twenty-five years old,
【課文譯文】
模糊語(yǔ)言
生活中的模糊現象到處都有，連我們的語(yǔ)言中也不乏模糊的表述。日常語(yǔ)言里很大部分是由諸如“可能”、“許多”、“不久”、“大”、“小”之類(lèi)的詞語(yǔ)組成。這些詞究竟意味著(zhù)什么呢?英國倫敦的《泰晤士報》近期發(fā)表一篇社論，稱(chēng)“原子戰爭有可能永久性地毀滅發(fā)動(dòng)戰爭的國家�！蔽覀冊鯓硬拍艽_切地理解“有可能”這個(gè)詞語(yǔ)呢?對“可能”的估計并沒(méi)有一個(gè)標準，那我們只能聽(tīng)憑社論作者個(gè)人的判斷了。
這類(lèi)用詞不精確的現象我們并不一定要予以責備。甚至，它還有一定的價(jià)值，因為它容許我們在無(wú)法作出一個(gè)精確的數量表述時(shí)來(lái)表達判斷。
模糊語(yǔ)言可分為三類(lèi)：1.表示單一主觀(guān)意義上可能性的，可能定量的詞語(yǔ)，諸如“很可能”、“可能”、“肯定”等詞。2.諸如“許多”、“時(shí)�！�、“不久”等詞語(yǔ)，這類(lèi)詞語(yǔ)也可以定量，但所表達的意義與其說(shuō)是某種不能肯定的狀況，不如說(shuō)是一個(gè)知之不確的數量。3.諸如“胖”、“富”、“醉”這類(lèi)詞語(yǔ)，不能精確到人們都認同的數量，只因不同的人有不同的評判標準。
我們一直在試圖通過(guò)實(shí)驗說(shuō)明，在各種特定的語(yǔ)言環(huán)境下人們使用上述詞語(yǔ)表達了什么樣的意義，這些意義怎樣隨年齡的不同而變化。比如：告訴一個(gè)被測試者“某公園里有許多樹(shù)”，然后問(wèn)他“許多”一詞在他看來(lái)應該指多少�；蛘�，讓一個(gè)小孩子從碗中取“一些”糖塊，我們可以數一數他取了多少。我們比較一下只有他自己在場(chǎng)時(shí)取的數量和他當著(zhù)一個(gè)或多個(gè)小朋友的面所取的數量，或者讓他拿“一些”給別的小朋友時(shí)所取的數量。
第一，我們發(fā)現，拿的數量取決于所提供的糖塊的總量。對大多數人來(lái)說(shuō)，“一些朋友”大約指五個(gè)朋友，而“一些樹(shù)”指20多棵樹(shù)。但類(lèi)別不相關(guān)的事物有時(shí)則呈現出對等的數值。例如：關(guān)于天氣和政治這兩個(gè)不同范疇的預測，模糊語(yǔ)言的表述有著(zhù)幾乎相同的意思。如“一定會(huì )(下雨，當選等)”表示有75%的可能，“很可能”約有60%的可能，而“可能會(huì )”則約有55%的可能。
第二，試驗物品總量的大小影響到對某一詞語(yǔ)的賦值。如讓一個(gè)被測試者從一個(gè)盒子里拿“一些”或“許多”玻璃球，如果盒子里裝的多，他就拿的多；裝的少就拿的少。但所取數量的多少不是按比例增加的：將玻璃球增加七倍，被測試者也只是從總數中取很小一部分出來(lái) 。
第三，隨著(zhù)年齡不同變化明顯。在6～14的少兒組里，年齡越大，玻璃球反而拿得越少。但“許多”和“一些”兩詞的意義差別隨年齡增長(cháng)而擴大。這種年齡差異是很穩定的，因此可以用來(lái)作智力測驗。我們可以不用作長(cháng)期測試，只需讓被測試者在特定的語(yǔ)言環(huán)境下對“差不多一直”和“幾乎沒(méi)有”兩詞語(yǔ)賦值，然后就可以根據代表“差不多一直”的數值與代表“幾乎沒(méi)有”的數值的比值來(lái)測量他的智力。我們已發(fā)現，比值是隨著(zhù)年齡的增大而逐漸增大的；7歲兒童的這一比值為2：1，而25歲成人的比值為20：1。
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